1.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states

2.
Joseph Stalin
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Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. Stalin was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Sokolnikov, and Bubnov. Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and he managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin by suppressing Lenins criticisms and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained General Secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, the economic changes coincided with the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labour camps. The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–33, major figures in the Communist Party and government, and many Red Army high commanders, were arrested and shot after being convicted of treason in show trials. Stalins invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence agreed with the Axis, Germany ended the pact when Hitler launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion after the decisive Battles of Moscow, after defeating the Axis powers on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured Berlin in May 1945, effectively ending the war in Europe for the Allies. The Soviet Union subsequently emerged as one of two recognized world superpowers, the other being the United States, Communist governments loyal to the Soviet Union were established in most countries freed from German occupation by the Red Army, which later constituted the Eastern Bloc. Stalin also had relations with Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il-sung in North Korea. On February 9,1946, Stalin delivered a public speech in which he explained the fundamental incompatibility of communism and capitalism. He stressed that the system needed war for raw materials. The Second World War was but the latest in a chain of conflicts which could be broken only when the economy made the transformation into communism. Stalin led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase, which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War, Stalin remains a controversial figure today, with many regarding him as a tyrant. However, popular opinion within the Russian Federation is mixed, the exact number of deaths caused by Stalins regime is still a subject of debate, but it is widely agreed to be in the order of millions. Joseph Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, the Russian-language version of his birth name is Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Ioseb was born on 18 December 1878 in the town of Gori, Georgia and his father was Besarion Jughashvili, a cobbler, while his mother was Ekaterine Keke Geladze, a housemaid. As a child, Ioseb was plagued with health issues

3.
Premier of the Soviet Union
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The office of Premier of the Soviet Union was synonymous with head of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Twelve individuals became premier over the span of the office. Two of the twelve died in office of natural causes. The first premier was Lenin, who was inaugurated in 1922 after the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, ivan Silayev spent the shortest time in office at 126 days in 1991. At over fourteen years, Kosygin spent the longest time in office, the Council of Peoples Commissars was established on 8 November 1917 by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Government. The Council of Peoples Commissars published decrees and decisions that were binding throughout the Soviet Union, in 1946, the Council of Peoples Commissars was transformed into the Council of Ministers at both all-Union and Union Republic level. However Kosygins position was weakened when he proposed a reform in 1965. Under the 1977 Soviet Constitution, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers was the head of government of the USSR. The premier was responsible and accountable to the Supreme Soviet, the premier managed the national economy, formulated the five-year plans and ensured socio-cultural development. List of heads of state of the Soviet Union List of leaders of the Soviet Union Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union

4.
Vladimir Lenin
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Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the alias Lenin, was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of the Russian Republic from 1917 to 1918, of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1918 to 1924, under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party socialist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, he developed political theories known as Leninism, born to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brothers execution in 1887. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empires Tsarist regime and he moved to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and became a senior figure in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya, after his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent party theorist through his publications. In 1903, he took a key role in a RSDLP ideological split, Lenins government was led by the Bolsheviks—now renamed the Communist Party—with some powers initially also held by elected soviets. It redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry, opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign orchestrated by the state security services, tens of thousands were killed and others interned in concentration camps. Anti-Bolshevik armies, established by both right and left-wing groups, were defeated in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922, responding to wartime devastation, famine, and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin promoted economic growth through a mixed economic system. Seeking to promote world revolution, Lenins government created the Communist International, waged the Polish–Soviet War, in increasingly poor health, Lenin expressed opposition to the growing power of his successor, Joseph Stalin, before dying at his Gorki mansion. He became a figurehead behind Marxism-Leninism and thus a prominent influence over the international communist movement. Lenins father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, was from a family of serfs, his origins remain unclear, with suggestions being made that he was Russian, Chuvash, Mordvin. Despite this lower-class background he had risen to middle-class status, studying physics and mathematics at Kazan Imperial University before teaching at the Penza Institute for the Nobility, Ilya married Maria Alexandrovna Blank in mid-1863. Well educated and from a prosperous background, she was the daughter of a German–Swedish woman. Soon after their wedding, Ilya obtained a job in Nizhny Novgorod, five years after that, he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing the foundation of over 450 schools as a part of the governments plans for modernisation. His dedication to education earned him the Order of St. Vladimir, the couple had two children, Anna and Alexander, before Lenin—who would gain the childhood nickname of Volodya—was born in Simbirsk on 10 April 1870, and baptised several days later. They were followed by three children, Olga, Dmitry, and Maria. Two later siblings died in infancy, Ilya was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church and baptised his children into it, although Maria – a Lutheran – was largely indifferent to Christianity, a view that influenced her children. Every summer they holidayed at a manor in Kokushkino

5.
Hero of the Soviet Union
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The title Hero of the Soviet Union was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society. The award was established on May 5,1934, by the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union, earlier heroes were retroactively eligible for these items. A hero could be awarded the title again for a subsequent heroic feat with an additional Gold Star medal, an additional Order of Lenin was not given until 1973. The practice of awarding the title multiple times was abolished by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1988 during perestroika,44 foreign citizens were awarded the title. The title was given posthumously, though often without the actual Gold Star medal given. The title could be revoked only by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the total number of people who were awarded this title is 12,755. The great majority of them received it during World War II, sixty-five people were awarded the title for actions related to the Soviet-Afghan War, which lasted from 1979 until 1989. Valentina Grizodubova, a pilot, was the first woman to become a Hero of the Soviet Union for her international womens record for a straight-line distance flight. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, a Soviet partisan, was the first woman to become a Hero of the Soviet Union during World War II, in addition,101 people received the award twice. A second award entitled the recipient to have a bronze bust of his or her likeness with an inscription erected in his or her hometown. Two famous Soviet fighter pilots, Aleksandr Pokryshkin and Ivan Kozhedub were three times Heroes of the Soviet Union. A third award entitled the recipient to have his/her bronze bust erected on a pedestal in Moscow, near the Palace of the Soviets. The only individuals to receive the four times were Marshal Georgy Zhukov. The original statute of the Hero of the Soviet Union, however, did not provide for a fourth title, both Zhukov and Brezhnev received their fourth titles under controversial circumstances contrary to the statute, which remained largely unchanged until the award was abolished in 1991. Zhukov was awarded a time for his large accomplishments on the occasion of his 60th birthday on December 1,1956. There is some speculation that Zhukovs fourth Hero medal was for his participation in the arrest of Beria in 1953, brezhnevs four awards further eroded the prestige of the award because they were birthday gifts, on the occasions of his 60th, 70th, 72nd and 75th birthdays. Such practices halted in 1988 due to a decision of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, by the 1970s, the award had been somewhat devalued. Important political and military persons had been awarded on the occasions of their anniversaries rather than for any immediate heroic activity, all Soviet cosmonauts, starting from Yuri Gagarin, as well as foreign citizens who participated in Soviet cosmic program as cosmonauts, received Hero award for each flight

6.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians

7.
Mikhail Kalinin
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Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, known familiarly by Soviet citizens as Kalinych, was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist–Leninist functionary. He served as head of state of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, from 1926, he was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Kalinin was born to a peasant family of ethnic Russian origin in the village of Verkhnyaya Troitsa, Tver Governorate and he was the elder brother of Fedor Kalinin. Kalinin finished his education at a school in 1889 and worked for a time on a farm. He moved to Saint Petersburg, where he found employment as a worker in 1895. He also worked as a butler and then as a worker at Tbilisi depot, where he met Sergei Alliluyev. In 1906, he married the ethnic Estonian Ekaterina Lorberg (Russian, Kalinin joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898, the year of its foundation. He came to know Stalin through the Alliluyev family, during the Russian Revolution of 1905, Kalinin worked for the Bolshevik party and on the staff of the Central Union of Metal Workers. He later became active on behalf of the RSDLP in Tiflis, Georgia, Reval, Estonia, in April 1906 he served as a delegate at the 4th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Kalinin was an early and devoted adherent of the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP and he was a delegate to the 1912 Bolshevik Party Conference held in Prague, where he was elected an alternate member of the governing Central Committee and sent to work inside Russia. He did not become a member because he was suspected of being an Okhrana agent. Kalinin was arrested for his activities in 1916 and freed during the February Revolution of 1917. Kalinin joined the Petrograd Bolshevik committee and assisted in the organization of the party daily Pravda and he continued to oppose an armed uprising to overthrow the government of Alexander Kerensky throughout that summer. In the elections held for the Petrograd City Duma in autumn 1917, Kalinin was chosen as mayor of the city, in 1919, Kalinin was elected a member of the governing Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party as well as a candidate member of the Politburo. He was promoted to membership on the Politburo in January 1926. When Yakov Sverdlov died in March 1919 Kalinin replaced him as President of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the name of this position was changed to Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR in 1922 and to Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in 1938. Kalinin continued to hold the post without interruption until his retirement at the end of World War II, in 1920, Kalinin attended the Second World Congress of the Communist International in Moscow as part of the Russian delegation. He was seated on the rostrum and took an active part in the debates

8.
Vsevolod Bobrov
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Vsevolod Mikhailovich Bobrov was a Soviet athlete, who excelled in football, bandy and ice hockey. He is considered one of the best Russians ever in all of those sports, after serving in the Soviet Army during World War II he was invited to play football for the Army club CSKA Moscow in 1945. Playing until 1953 for CSKA, VVS, and Spartak, he would go on to win the Soviet Championship three times, scoring 97 goals in only 116 games, Bobrov led the country in goals in 1945 with 24 and 1947 with 14. He was capped three times for the Soviet Union national team representing them in the 1952 Summer Olympics and he scored five goals in total, including a hat trick against Yugoslavia. Bobrov began playing hockey for CSKA a year after his football start and his playing career in this sport lasted until 1957, with the years between 1950 and 1953 spent with VVS. Although football was Bobrovs first sport, his success in ice hockey was even greater, in 1950, a plane crash almost killed the entire Soviet national ice hockey team. Bobrov survived the crash as he overslept and travelled by rail, in the Soviet Championship, that his teams won seven times, Vsevolod scored an amazing 254 goals in only 130 games. He played for the Soviet national team in the 1956 Winter Olympics, Bobrov proceeded to lead his country to the gold medal, and also won the World Championship in 1954 and 1956. Overall, he scored 89 goals in 59 games for his country, in Russian ice hockey, his name was given to an exclusive list of players, the Bobrov Club, who scored over 250 goals during their career. Bobrov, who served as a player-coach in both sports during his time with VVS, would go on to various teams after retiring as a player in both football and ice hockey. In the latter, he coached the USSR in the 1972 Summit Series, Vsevolod Bobrov died in Moscow in 1979. He was elected to the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame in 1997, for the greatest Russian athlete in the 20th century, Bobrov finished third behind football goalkeeper Lev Yashin and Greco-Roman wrestler Alexander Karelin. Kontinental Hockey League has a division bearing his name, in The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics,2010 Edition

9.
Olga Ladyzhenskaya
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Olga Aleksandrovna Ladyzhenskaya was a Soviet and Russian mathematician. She was known for her work on differential equations and fluid dynamics. She provided the first rigorous proofs of the convergence of a finite difference method for the Navier–Stokes equations and she was a student of Ivan Petrovsky. She was awarded the Lomonosov Gold Medal in 2002, Ladyzhenskaya was born and grew up in Kologriv. She was the daughter of a teacher who is credited with her early inspiration. In October 1937 her father was arrested by the NKVD and soon killed, young Olga was able to finish high school but, because her father was an enemy of the people, she was forbidden to enter the Leningrad University. After Joseph Stalin died in 1953, Ladyzhenskaya presented her thesis and was given the degree she had long before earned. She went on to teach at the university in Leningrad and at the Steklov Institute, staying in Russia even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, ladyženskaja, O. A. Solonnikov, V. A. Uralceva, N. N. Linear and quasi-linear equations of parabolic type, Translations of Mathematical Monographs,23, Providence, RI, American Mathematical Society, pp. XI+648, MR0241821, Ladyzhenskaya, Olga A. Uraltseva, Nina N. Linear and Quasilinear Elliptic Equations, Mathematics in Science and Engineering,46, New York and London, Academic Press, pp. XVIII+495, MR0244627, Zbl 0164.13002. The Boundary Value Problems of Mathematical Physics, Applied Mathematical Sciences,49, Berlin–Heidelberg–New York, Springer Verlag, pp. XXX+322, ISBN 0-521-39922-X, MR0793735, Zbl 0588.35003. Ladyzhenskaya, O. A. Attractors for Semigroups and Evolution Equations, Lezioni Lincee, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. xi+73, MR1133627, Elliptic equation Ladyzhenskayas inequality Navier-Stokes equations Partial differential equation Bolibruch, A. A. Mathematical Events of the Twentieth Century, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York City, Springer-Verlag, pp. VIII+545, ISBN 978-3-540-23235-3, MR2179060, some recollections of the authors about Olga Ladyzhenskaya and Olga Oleinik.01335. A biography in the Biographies of Women Mathematicians, Agnes Scott College, 1–10, ISBN 3-540-44051-8, MR2008328, Zbl pre01944352. Some recollections of the author about Olga Ladyzhenskaya and Olga Oleinik.01516 Beirao da Veiga, H. Seregin, G. Solonnikov, V. Uraltseva, N. Valli, Partial Differential Equations in Mathematical Physics, Trento, CIRM, retrieved 1 February 2012. The schedule of a workshop in honour of Olga A. Ladyzhenskaya, Women in Mathematics, The Legacy of Ladyzhenskaya and Oleinik - May 18–20,2006, Berkeley, CA, AWM and MSRI, retrieved 1 July 2009. The proceedings of a workshop in honour of Olga Ladyzhenskaya and Olga Oleinik, Olga Ladyzhenskaya at the Mathematics Genealogy Project. OConnor, John J. Robertson, Edmund F. Olga Alexandrovna Ladyzhenskaya, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, Saint Petersburg Mathematical Society, Olga Aleksandrovna Ladyzhenskaya, retrieved 5 June 2011